Publisher's Synopsis
In 1989, the military services of the United States began a joint effort to validate the best of their experimental cognitive and computerized aptitude tests. The purpose was to assess whether the validity of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) could be improved by adding new tests, possibly by replacing the existing ASVAB tests. This project became known as the Enhanced Computer-Administered Testing (ECAT) project.
The impetus for this project was the development of the computerized adaptive testing version of the ASVAB. The prospect that computers would become universally available for military enlistment testing as well as other abilities, including working memory, choice reaction speed, moving-object perception, and psychomotor coordination offered a major technological breakthrough. Prior to the ECAT, all of these tests required individual testing in psychological laboratories with special equipment; therefore, the possibility of routine personnel testing by computers could not be ignored.
